Iron chef Yonamine pan-fries foes

Author: Mike Murali

On Thursday, March 9, two teams battled for the right to be the official Middlebury Iron Chefs in Ross Commons Dining Hall. Cook Commons' team, led by Jay Yonamine '07 with assistants Andrew Bermudez '07 and Charles Cavness '09, defeated the Wonacott Commons team, led by Maggie Higgins '08 with assistants Emi Neithercut and Nick Monier, both '08.

This cook-off was based on the popular show Iron Chef, which appears on the Food Network. On that program, top-rated cooks from dozens of countries compete for the right to be among the greatest chefs in the world. In every episode a new secret ingredient is introduced and the chefs are challenged to create a full meal within a time limit, with each portion containing some of the special ingredient.

For this event, the mystery food was pineapple. Said Yonamine of his tactics, "I made a Hawaiian pizza, crust and all. Pineapple-based teriyaki sauce over sautéed beef and grilled pineapple. Pineapple salsa for grilled salmon and pineapple rum flambé over vanilla ice cream and puff pastries."

Higgins, however, took a different approach. "We made five dishes incorporating pineapple, which is hard to cook with. We started off with a tomato-pineapple bruschetta on basil toasted baguette. Then we served a sautéed vegetable and pineapple succotash with shrimp, after which we served turkey pineapple cacciatore burger on portabellas and cheesy scalloped potatoes with pineapple. We finished off with a peach and pineapple cobbler with ice cream."

Both teams worked hard under pressure and managed to complete their dishes. The competition was quite fierce in the dining hall that night. "I'd never been to a Middlebury Iron Chef, but my sister loves Food Network, so I've seen a fair share of the real 'Iron Chef' with her," commented Higgins about the competition.

Bermudez said it was a fun time as well, saying "I had a great time. I'm going to become a cage fighter just like Jay."

Yonamine, who gained Middlebury notoriety from a Campus article about his prowess in the rink, said, "My last article in The Campus was about my cage fight, which many guys seemed pretty excited about because fighting in general is a fun macho thing. Hopefully after this article, instead of having drunk guys come up to me and ask me to train them, I will have girls asking me to cook for them."

Many of the participants were competing in their first Iron Chef competition. It was not, however the first for Yonamine. "I have actually done this three years in a row now. I might participate in the future but it's kind of stressful and takes a bunch of time." He also encouraged others to participate, saying that "some other students from Cook might want the chance to give it a try."

When asked about how she felt about her competition, Higgins said "Jay and his team were real intense, very nice throughout the competition, and created a superb array of dishes. Though we came in as the underdogs, seriously outweighed in cooking and the Iron Chef experience, we had a great time and enjoyed the competition."

Both teams created a creative array of dishes to present to the judges, who were not disappointed. It seems that both Cook and Wonnacott have budding culinary masters in their midst. Who knows who will be the next Iron Chef?